The Unlikely Artist

In this episode, we examine the way we all use rules to limit ourselves. Our made-up rules affect our lives in dramatic ways. They constrain what we allow ourselves to do and who we allow ourselves to be.

When we stop to examine our self-imposed rules, our world opens. We discover we’re free to decide which rules to keep and which ones to discard. We learn how to broaden the choices available to us and we create expansive lives.

I refer in this episode to the “Obey” episode of the CBC Podcast, Telling Our Twisted Histories, hosted by Kaniehtilio Horn. That episode explores the western concept of “obey”. It’s a word that doesn’t exist in indigenous cultures, but is deeply embedded in broader society. It’s a word that has a huge impact on our thinking. The mission of Telling Our Twisted Histories is to decolonize our minds, one word at a time. By rethinking “obey” and our compliance culture, we can all take a huge step forward.

In episode 10, How to Think Your Future into Existence, you learned how to use visualization to create your future. In this episode, we focus instead on how to use visualization and imagery to solve your problems.

There are several reasons why imagery works so well for problem solving:

Repeated patterns of thinking become wired into our brains and steeped into our subconscious. Our subconscious doesn’t understand language. It does understand pictures and images. We need to be able to communicate with our subconscious to solve deep seated patterns of thinking.

Imagery helps us step out of linear thinking so that we can find more creative solutions.

When we visualize solving a problem a new way, we gain problem solving experience. That’s because our brains can’t distinguish between actual and imagined experiences.

Images can help us remember preferred solutions when we’re in emotionally charged situations that make it hard to remember the specific language we’d planned to use.

Listen to this episode to hear several examples for how you can use images to solve your problems.

This episode is for you if you associate “difficult” with “valuable” and “easy” with “not valuable”.

We're living in a society that prizes effort, diligence, stamina, dedication, commitment and working hard. These things are necessary sometimes. Valuable sometimes. But a lot of times we prize these qualities so much we create a desperate dedication to effort that’s completely unnecessary.

Listen to this episode to find out why easy can be better. Learn how to effort less and enjoy life more.

In this episode, I share how you can look inward, instead of outsourcing your decisions. I discuss the four sources of wisdom available to you that no outside expert will ever have. And I provide a framework for making decisions over the next week.

Ready for some fun? In this episode I mention that it might be fun to record a podcast episode where I coach someone over Zoom through a dream analysis. The purpose would be to teach podcast listeners how to do this for themselves. Dream analysis is a useful and easy way to access important inner wisdom about your decisions. If you’d be interested in volunteering to have your dream analyzed in a podcast episode, you can reach me at [email protected].

Get ready to blow up your concept of what your “career” encompasses. When you learn to think more expansively about your career, you might very well find that your whole life becomes bigger.

Language can curtail your choices, or it can set you free. In this episode you’ll learn why it’s true that you're never stuck or confined by the career choices you've already made, your age, or your previous work experience.

In this episode I outline a new way to think about your career and what’s possible for you. You’ll be able to make different choices and find the energy and confidence to take the next steps towards creating the life you want.

The “broken” pieces of us - the parts of us we’ve been believing are wrong – are often areas of tremendous strength and value.

When there’s something about us that’s been bothering us, and we decide to start loving it and not trying to hide it, it can become the reason other people seek us out. It can be what allows other people to relate to us and makes them want to get to know us better. Ironically, it’s when we pretend to be too perfect that we turn other people away.

In this episode, we explore how to reframe your thinking about those things you’re making wrong about you. We consider several examples of how people have transformed things they thought were wrong about them into exactly the reason they now celebrate themselves.

There’s nothing more freeing than finding out that ALL of you is worthwhile.

This is my favorite episode so far because of the power of what I'm sharing here. I unveil what I like to think of as the secret to the universe – how to access the unlimited creativity that is available to you. When you tap into it, your life will transform in a powerful way.

I share a story that explains why I believe each one of us has available to us creativity at the level of a Mozart or Monet. In my world, there is no hierarchy of creative worthiness. Creativity isn't personal. It's something that's available to us when we're able to stop thinking and allow it to flow through us.

In this episode I give you some simple techniques to help you allow the creativity to flow through you.

I'd love to hear from any of you who try this out what your experience is. Let’s have a conversation. Write to me at [email protected].

In this episode we focus on your worried brain.

If you have a habit of worrying a lot, it’s because a part of you believes that worry is useful.

In this episode, I show you why worry isn’t useful and how you can redirect your worried brain to more productive – and enjoyable - thinking.

If you ditch the myth that worrying is productive, you will free up your beautiful brain to create the life you want. And that’s what I want for you!

If you think some part of you is wrong, you’ll find comfort in this episode.

We all have a tendency to want to fight off our inner critic, but it doesn’t work. “Piling on” by criticizing our own inner critic only makes things worse.

In this episode, I propose a different approach that involves self compassion and deep listening. When you step off the treadmill of personal perfection and allow all the pieces of you to exist, you’ll free yourself to feel better and you’ll be more likely to get to a place you actually want to be.

You’re more than just the perfect, pretty parts of you, and that’s a beautiful thing.

In this episode I mention my wonderful peer coach, Terri Bradway. To find out more about Terri and how to contact her, check out her website at https://www.coachbradway.com/.

This is a fun and different episode that will pack a punch in your life if you follow my suggestions towards the end.

It’s not a “chick episode” and it’s not for fashionistas.

The way you think about the simple act of getting dressed in the morning can be a portal to a more a profound knowledge of yourself and what you want. It’s an exercise that can shift you out of the rut of making choices designed to please other people. It will help you grow your intuitive understanding of what you like and what lights you up, which can have a meaningful impact on the rest of your life.

The New York Times essay I mention, “My Mustache, My Self” is featured in the June 13, 2021 episode of The Daily, a New York Times podcast that is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Eyenie Schultz is The Technicolor Priestess. You can find out more information about Eyenie’s brilliant courses and other offerings at https://www.technicolorpriestess.com/.